Easy, eco-money

I have never had so much fun with web-sites before that didn’t involve porn!

Just kidding! About the last part anyway... because these web-sites are awesome! Both involve making money from recycling and cutting down waste, with minimal efforts on your part required. Green for green, I love it!

Ok, so the first site is like a sperm bank, for gadgets.
The good folks at Hewlett-Packard have developed a trade-in program where they’ll give you money for your goodies that you don’t want anymore. (Although it’s run by HP, they are pretty open-minded, and are open to all makes and brands.)

Instead of jumping off your adventure with selection of enhancers like “Edward Penishands,” “White Men Can’t Hump,”or “Batman in Robin,” the fun here begins when you choose the genre of equipment you want to trade-in for straight cash. These options sound so mundane in comparison- such as cameras, computer monitors, or PDAs. You probably have tons of this stuff all over your house anyway, why waste it if you could better dispose of it, and make money at the same time?!

Further information is needed to estimate the worth of your unwanted load, like make, model, age, etc. Once you share all the details, and they receive and assess your special delivery- a check is put in the mail to you. HP will make sure your bits and pieces are placed in fostering new homes, and everyone has a satisfying happy ending.

Other options in this vein: CellforCash.com pays up to $100 for used cell phones, depending on the model , or see Kiplinger's "What to do with your high-tech has-beens" for additional information.

The second site helps you recycle and cut the waste of money.
When I found this site, MissingMoney.com, I seriously sat down, made myself comfortable, and entered every person’s name I could think of to see what their “unclaimed” money situation was.

States are at this very moment, sitting on billions and billions of dollars worth of unclaimed assets- from lost bank accounts, misplaced bonds and securities, dividend checks, uncollected utility deposits to unclaimed insurance policies.

I felt like a contestant on the “Price is Right” when I entered my own name, silently repeating “Big money, big money” to myself. I had nothin'. However, my dad had 3 pages worth of listings. My aunt and my friend’s dad had a few. No one I have (ever) worked with had any- but that person whose mail we accidentally got one time? Yeah, that person had some unclaimed money too. (All you need to check is a person’s name and state. I wasn’t trying to steal identities or anything, just being nosey!) I have even returned to “Favorite Grandchild” status (narrowly beating out my sister, who to my grand-mother’s infinite joy is the first of us to get engaged,) since alerting my grand-mother to the fact that my grand-father had three unclaimed deposits.

This is a ton of money, that is currently just being wasted, and you should all know by now how I feel about things being wasted… not good!

Other options in this vein: To cast a wider net, go to UnclaimedAssets.com to learn where to look for billions of dollars' worth of unclaimed assets held by the federal government, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and pensions.

So.... um, this is kind of awkward, but what are you still doing here?!
Go, click away, and be merry! (And feel free to let me know what kind of money you were able to score from these sites!)
Best wishes! xoxo